What is Resiliency?
Resiliency is our ability to manage and recover from stressful and challenging life experiences.
Resilient individuals bounce back from life’s challenges and see challenges as opportunities for growth rather than a setback. Being resilient promotes our social and emotional wellness and positively impacts our health and ability to learn. Research has highlighted resiliency to be associated with higher levels of social skills, problem-solving skills, self-efficacy and a sense of optimism about their future.
Our childhood environment and experiences play an important role in our resiliency set point, either contributing to protective or risk factors. A resilient individual works to increase protective factors and find support to decrease risk factors. Protective factors include developed emotional regulation, nurturing parents, strong social connections and safe neighbourhoods.
We have the ability to increase our resiliency!
Activities to support resilience:
- Learn about growth vs. fixed mindset
- Find a peer mentor to check in with
- Engage in activities that provide a sense of meaning and purpose
- Understand your strengths
- Discover activities that help combat stress
- Practice self-compassion
Workbooks to support resilience:
The Social Well-being Workbook [PDF, 1.2 MB] is a tool designed to inform Carleton University students about social well-being in a self-driven manner. Ultimately, this tool aims to increase feelings of belongingness and reduce homesickness amongst students. The workbook includes explanations of major contributors to social well-being, interaction questions and journaling prompts and helpful campus resources.
We recommend viewing Our Brain: Journey to Resilience in addition to completing the Social Wellbeing Workbook, to support increasing resilience.